President Barack Obama’s push to hire military veterans for jobs across the government is fueling resentment in federal offices, as longtime civil servants and former troops on the other side of the cubicle increasingly question each other’s competence and qualifications. With veterans moving to the head of the hiring queue in the biggest numbers in a generation, there’s growing bitterness on both sides, according to dozens of interviews with federal employees. Those who did not serve in the military bristle at times at the preferential hiring of veterans and accuse them of a blind deference to authority. The veterans chafe...

More Americans disapprove than approve of Barack Obama’s response to the situation in Iraq, even while the public broadly agrees with his decision not to send U.S. combat forces there. The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll marks the difficulties Obama faces in crafting a popular response to the deepening crisis. Two-thirds oppose sending ground troops to fight the Sunni insurgents in Iraq, a step the president himself ruled out last week. Regardless, just 42 percent approve of the way he’s handling the situation, while 52 percent disapprove. The public divides evenly on another potential option, the use of air strikes.

A postal worker has been shot and killed while delivering mail in Prince George's County, Maryland, on Saturday evening. Police have identified the victim as 26-year-old Tyson Jerome Barnette of Upper Marlboro. Authorities are still trying to identify suspects and a motive in the case. Officers were called to Reed Street in Cheverly-Landover just after 7.20pm on Saturday and found Barnette suffering from gunshot wounds. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

In the last month, conservatives looking for a possible 2016 presidential candidate with a serious approach to defense and foreign policy were starting to wonder if they would be stuck with outliers rather than frontrunners. The only reason why people like former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton and Rep. Peter King—men who are respected voices on these issues but not likely to have a chance at the nomination—were getting even minimal attention for their presidential trial balloons was the fact that all of the likely contenders have been ignoring the question of America’s need to maintain a forward position in...

The concrete on the buildings has chipped away, the "no parking" signs are fading and the pavement is filled with sedan-eating potholes. The Port of Chicago hasn't had a major face-lift in more than 30 years — and it shows. But a 62-year lease to a Colorado company announced Sunday will bring a $500 million private investment that city leaders say will modernize Chicago's port and bring its infrastructure into this century.

our teenage girls caught on videotape laughingly beating a defenseless woman are remorseless and defiant even as they are about to be arraigned on criminal charges in a Philadelphia court, police said today. The girls videotaped the beating and posted it on Facebook. Someone who saw the video called the cops. Four of the six teens involved have been arrested and they are aged 16 and 17, according to the Chester Police Department. Authorities are searching for the other two girls. The cell phone video shows five girls standing on the street Tuesday night, playing around for the camera before...

The 24 Hours of Le Mans has always been a laboratory for wild automotive technology—part sporting event, part science fiction. On Sunday, at the 80th running of the world's most famous endurance race, a hybrid racing car won for the first time. Audi's 200-mph R18 e-tron quattro took the checkered flag in front of 240,000 fans, in the hands of German driver André Lotterer. The winning hybrid, nicknamed "Electra" by the Audi team, traveled 3,201.18 miles over the 24 hours—the rough equivalent of Miami to Seattle.

Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wis.) disagreed Sunday with Mitt Romney's conclusion that the failed recall election in Wisconsin was evidence that American voters want fewer public workers such as teachers and firemen. “I think it's slightly different – I think in our case what they wanted was people willing to take on the tough issues not only here but across the country,” Walker told CBS's Face the Nation. “I know in my state our reforms allowed us to protect firefighters, police officers and teachers. That's not what I think of when I think of big government.”

Gov. Scott Walker urged Mitt Romney to develop a more cogent economic message Thursday in order to win over the fickle swing voters needed to carry Wisconsin and win the presidency. The Republican governor’s advice was more a critique of style than substance, but he warned Romney that framing the fall election solely as a referendum on President Barack Obama would be a risky bet. “He’s got plans … But I think it’s got to be, narrow it down to a very simple set of messages that embody the larger plan that he has,” Walker said of Romney’s fiscal and...

AUSTIN (KXAN) - An old foe is lashing out at Gov. Rick Perry, as he continues his campaign for president. Debra Medina - a GOP opponent in 2011's gubernatorial race - and a handful of tea party activists pointed out what they call “crony capitalism” formed under Perry's reign in Texas. "Michele Bachmann got it right. Gov. Perry's executive order was driven on money, not driven on good policy,” Medina said Thursday at the State Capitol.

JASPER - Longtime civil rights activist and comedian Dick Gregory held a prayer vigil in Jasper Tuesday night in protest of Lawrence Brewer's execution. Brewer was sentenced to death and is scheduled to die Wednesday for his role in the dragging death of James Byrd Junior in 1998. Gregory, a strong opponent of capital punishment, will conduct an 18 hour fast and vigil at the Walls Unit in Huntsville. "When do the State qualify to kill somebody and the government qualify to kill somebody and it's all right"? said Gregrory. "It's never all right to kill somebody intentionally. There are...

Fox News presenter Bill O'Reilly has claimed that he has more power than anyone but Barack Obama. The news anchor made the extraordinary declaration while promoting his new book about the Lincoln assasination. He told Newsweek interviewer Peter Boyer: 'I have more power than anybody other than the president, in the sense that I can get things changed, quickly.'

A task force created to help overhaul a controversial deportation program instead witnessed five of its 19 members resign last week, another sign the Obama administration’s immigration policy remains politically problematic for him at a time when courting Latinos is crucial to his re-election. On Friday, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Task Force on Secure Communities released its report evaluating the interagency operation that determines if immigrants arrested by local police are deportable under federal immigration laws. The task force recommended that the federal government re-evaluate its mission to focus deportation efforts on criminal aliens, not illegal immigrants arrested...

(JTA) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked President Obama for his speech at the United Nations General Assembly, but the address was criticized by Palestinians. Netanyahu met with Obama at the United Nations on Wednesday afternoon after the president’s speech and reportedly expressed his appreciation for the address. The speech was also praised by Israel’s hawkish foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman. “I congratulate President Obama, and I am ready to sign on this speech with both hands,” Lieberman said at a news conference. Some officials with the Palestine Liberation Organization criticized the president’s speech, which was seen as a rebuke...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of violent crimes fell by a surprising 12 percent in the United States last year, a far bigger drop than the nation has been averaging since 2001, the Justice Department said. The Bureau of Justice Statistics reported there were 3.8 million violent crimes last year, down from 4.3 million in 2009. Experts aren't sure why. The expectation had been that crime would increase in a weak economy with high unemployment like that seen in 2010.

Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Obama have had their ups and downs, but Saturday Bibi had high praise after the United States helped Israel evacuate its embassy in Cairo. For that matter, Netanyahu also praised the Egyptian forces:

HAMPTON, Ga. (AP) — NASCAR star Tony Stewart scoffed at the notion he turned down an invitation from the White House as some sort of political statement. Stewart is among four Sprint Cup drivers who say they can't attend next week's meeting with President Obama because of scheduling conflicts. Eight others who made last year's Cup playoff, including five-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson, plan to be there along with NASCAR chairman and CEO Brian France. "Trust me, if we could be there, we'd definitely be there," Stewart said Friday at Atlanta Motor Speedway. "I've always viewed it as an honor...

Hits by Lady Gaga, Beyonce and Take That are among 100 songs that have been placed on an internet blacklist by China's culture ministry.Music websites have been given until 15 September to remove the offending tracks, which officials say harm "national cultural security". Those that fail to do so risk being prosecuted by the Chinese authorities.

Editor's note: The following story contains language some readers may consider offensive. Jackson, Mississippi (CNN) -- On a recent Sunday morning just before dawn, two carloads of white teenagers drove to Jackson, Mississippi, on what the county district attorney says was a mission of hate: to find and hurt a black person. In a parking lot on the western side of town they found their victim. James Craig Anderson, a 49-year-old auto plant worker, was standing in a parking lot, near his car. The teens allegedly beat Anderson repeatedly, yelled racial epithets, including "White Power!" according to witnesses. Hinds County...

MALDEN - Carlos K. Edwards wanted his girlfriend, Crystle Sears, to go to the bank with him Wednesday, but Sears refused. That was the root of an argument that escalated and then boiled over, Sears said yesterday in an interview at her grandmother’s apartment. “He just went nuts,’’ she said. Malden police said that Edwards, 34, threw their son, 7-week-old Carmello Sears, onto the concrete sidewalk outside Sears’s house, said “I hope you both die,’’ and walked away. Carmello is now undergoing treatment to stop internal bleeding and to mend his fractured skull, his family said. The baby was in...

For the neighbors at East Lake Courts who bore the brunt of what police call, a racial attack, the biggest shock is how blatantly the three suspected displayed racism. Angela Lonise witnessed several men drive by several times in a white pick up truck around 3 a.m. Saturday morning. According to Chattanooga Police Spokesperson Jerri Weary, Kyle Montgomery, 21, Colton Partin, 21 and James Smiley, 27, threw fireworks at African Americans while yelling racial slurs like, "run N***** run." Police say the suspects admitted they were targeting black people. "I thought all that racial stuff was over with and I...

"We Christians are truly dehumanized, we are treated as objects and as goods to sell. We live in a system where only the powerful have rights. For us Christians, justice in courts is not guaranteed: it is a serious concern in the rule of law, and this is a major cause of suffering and persecution of Christians in Pakistan"

LOUDON, N.H. — Jimmie Johnson has two titles he is especially proud to have linked to his name. Five-time NASCAR champion. AP Male Athlete of the Year. Johnson was swept into a brief Twitter feud this week because of his inclusion as a nominee for male athlete of the year at the ESPY Awards. Seahawks receiver Golden Tate posted on his account, @ShowtimeTate, "Jimmy johnson up for best athlete???? Um nooo .. Driving a car does not show athleticism." Tate, 22, angered NASCAR fans and posted, "12th man get these rednecks off me." More Tate tweets: • "I've driven a...

MEXICO CITY – Fifty-nine inmates escaped Friday from a prison in northern Mexico after a disturbance that left seven prisoners dead and at least five others injured, sources in the Tamaulipas state government told Efe. The incident took place at the Cedes 2 penitentiary in Nuevo Laredo, just across the border from Laredo, Texas, the same institution from which 151 inmates fled last December. Besides the 59 escapees, seven guards remain unaccounted for, the sources said. Friday’s mass escape came less than two months after 17 inmates tunneled their way out of a prison in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, a city next...

Jacksonville, FL — A Publix employee was attacked after complimenting a man with a Georgia Bulldogs T-shirt. 26-year-old James Wall said, “Hey, I like your shirt,” and that’s all it took for Ryan Keys to beat Wall outside of a Northside Publix. The attack happened Friday at the Publix on Duval Station Road, but the details were not made public until recently. Our news partner Channel 4 says Wall, the mentally disabled man was punched in the face so hard it knocked his two front teeth out; the teeth were found 10-12 feet from where he was laying. Police described...

What conclusions are to be drawn about the state of Middle East peacemaking from the extraordinary spectacle of the adversarial encounter between President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and their several major adversarial addresses in the second half of May? The spectacle did not bring an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement any closer. Indeed, Netanyahu's address to the U.S. Congress, no less than Congress's reaction to that speech, effectively buried the Middle East peace process for good. For what America's solons were jumping up and down to applaud so wildly as they pandered pathetically to the Israel lobby was...

Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin are taking the Republican presidential race by storm — even though neither has formally announced they will run. The former Alaska governor and the Minnesota congresswoman, who insist they are friends not rivals, are showing all the signs that they will provide GOP voters with their first genuine opportunity to vote for a female in the White House in 12 years. Each has the money, the backing, and the name recognition to go the distance against the men. And, as GOP Pollster Kellyanne Conway points out, their “groomed attractiveness” is also a major plus. “They...

Allies of former prime minister regard darling of Tea Party movement as a frivolous figure unworthy of an audience Sarah Palin wants to show to the Republican right that she is the true keeper of the Ronald Reagan flame by meeting the late president's closest ally on the world stage.

CORDOVA, Ala. (AP) — James Ruston's house was knocked off its foundation by tornadoes that barreled through town last month and is still uninhabitable. He thought help had finally arrived when a truck pulled up to his property with a mobile home from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Then he got the call: Single-wide mobile homes, like the FEMA one, are illegal in the city of Cordova. The city's refusal to let homeless residents occupy temporary housing provided by FEMA has sparked outrage in this central Alabama town of 2,000, with angry citizens filling a meeting last week and circulating...

Fresh off their Supreme Court victory allowing them to picket funerals of military soldiers, members of the Westboro Baptist Church have announced plans to picket the funerals of seven Mennonite children killed Tuesday night when their Perry County farmhouse caught fire. The children, ages 7 months to 11 years, were killed when a fire started in the home while their mother was milking cows and their father was on his milk delivery route.Their three-year-old daughter managed to escape and alert the mother, but the fire had already overwhelmed the wooden structure, police said. The group from Topeka, Kan., said the...

Loud protests by Wisconsin public employee unions against a budget reform proposal from new Governor Scott Walker have drawn considerable national network news attention since Thursday, the day Democratic state senators fled the state in a last-ditch gambit to prevent the bill from becoming law. A story-by-story analysis by the Media Research Center shows the Wisconsin protests are a perfect case study in the media's longstanding double standard favoring left-wing causes while demonstrating much more hostility to the Tea Party and conservative protests. Last March, as thousands protested on Capitol Hill in the days before the passage of ObamaCare, CBS's...

Americans have been used, strung along, ripped off, manipulated and frightened for decades by runaway gangs of power-mongering, deceptive politicians. I give you Social Security. As usual, it is the exact opposite of what we have been told. This classic Ponzi scheme is anti-social and insecure. President Franklin D. Roosevelt created Social Security 75 years ago. As with many other Fedzilla programs, Americans got suckered into believing Social Security was a healthy, wealthy and wise program. Social Security is bloated, broke and busted. FDR’s New Deal turned out to be the Rip-off Deal. There is an IOU for $2.5 trillion...

Sarah Palin has played a prominent role in defining Republican Party politics this year but still faces sizable obstacles if she decides to run for president in 2012, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. Six in 10 voters say they would not even consider voting for the former Alaska governor if she launches a White House bid, and she loses badly to President Obama in a hypothetical 2012 general election test.

<p>WASHINGTON -- It will be at least the weekend before the Maryland Green Party decides whether it will field a replacement candidate for U.S. Senate hopeful Natasha Pettigrew, who died Monday after being hit by an SUV as she rode her bicycle.</p>

CHILMARK - President Obama made the most of his first day of vacation, playing 18 holes at the chi-chi Vineyard Golf Club after taking daughters Sasha and Malia book shopping in Vineyard Haven. The prez, who has played more than 40 rounds of golf while in office, continued his links roll at the private, 18-hole course in Edgartown where he teed off with his favorite golfing companion, White House aide Marvin Nicholson, Chicago BFF Eric Whitaker and House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn.

VACAVILLE, Calif. (CBS13) â€• A Vacaville father called police frantic that his toddler was missing, but what happened next led police to arrest the man for child endangerment. Once the father called police, officers rushed in for the search: Vacaville Police on the ground, and CHP in the air. The search lasted only a few minutes after the boy was found safe; and the boy's father was put in cuffs. "We found it disturbing," said Sgt. Charlie Spruill, a Vacaville Police officer. The house had cluttered rooms with clothes everywhere, and garbage on top of garbage. A ladder was partially...

TAIPEI –Taiwan and China signed a wide-ranging trade agreement Tuesday that will reduce tariffs on hundreds of petrochemical, textile and other items and open services including banking to cross-strait investment, binding the two economies even closer together.

Officials said they expect an autopsy will confirm preliminary findings that a Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighter who made his professional debut at the "Confrontation at the Convocation" Saturday at the USC Aiken Convocation Center was pronounced dead Monday from blows he received during the weekend bout. Thirty-year-old Michael Kirkham of Gaffney was struck five or six times during the first round. The father of five children received several blows to the head, which caused the referee to stop the bout, said Aiken County Coroner Tim Carlton.

<p>PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Conservative talk radio king Rush Limbaugh is getting married for a fourth time - and Elton John will sing at the reception.</p>
<p>The Palm Beach Post reports that the 59-year-old Limbaugh is getting married Saturday night to 33-year-old Kathryn Rogers in a Hawaiian-themed affair. About 400 people are expected to attend at the swank Breakers Hotel.</p>

McALLEN, Texas -- Two Mexican nationals caught in Texas with 147 assault rifles, 10,000 rounds of ammunition, high-capacity magazines and bayonets have started serving short federal sentences after pleading guilty to entering the U.S. illegally. Federal prosecutors released the names of Damaso Alberto Rueda Cabrera and Arnulfo de la Cruz Sanchez on Thursday along with the unusual announcement that the men made their initial appearances in federal court, pleaded guilty and were sentenced to terms of 10 days and 45 days, respectively, all on Tuesday. In a prepared statement, U.S. Attorney Jose Angel Moreno said the investigation continued and no...

I’m told there won’t be any daylight between the US and Israel in the aftermath of the incident on the flotilla yesterday, which resulted in the deaths of 10 activists. Regardless of the details of the flotilla incident, sources say President Obama is focused on what he sees as the longer term issue here: a successful Mideast peace process. “The president has always said that it will be much easier for Israel to make peace if it feels secure,” a senior administration official tells ABC News. The suggestion is that US condemnation of Israel would further isolate that country, and...

COLUMBUS -- Officials in Columbus say police and city workers found razor blades taped to playground equipment in a park. Police say they received a call Tuesday morning, telling them that people had discovered the razor blades. Police and other officials went to the scene and found nine blades. Tony Adams, director of the city's Parks and Recreation Department, say the blades were found taped to a slide, on a wheel children use to pull themselves off the ground and other pieces of equipment. Adams says workers cordoned off the area and are going over it with metal detectors to...

The man who berated and tossed dollar bills at a man with Parkinson's disease during a health care protest last week says he is remorseful and scared. "I snapped. I absolutely snapped and I can't explain it any other way," said Chris Reichert of Victorian Village, in a Dispatch interview. In his first comments on an incident that went viral across the Internet and was repeatedly played on cable television news shows, Reichert said he is sorry about his confrontation with Robert A. Letcher, 60, of the North Side. Letcher, a former nuclear engineer who suffers from Parkinson's, was verbally...

A new book reveals for the first time the drama that unfolded on election night 2008, when McCain campaign staff battled Sarah Palin over a concession speech she planned to deliver. An excerpt published in The Daily Beast includes both the victory and concession speeches Palin had prepared to give, depending on the election outcome. The McCain campaign insisted several times that she not give the speech, and even turned the lights out on her while she and her family took pictures, fearing that she would speak anyway. The revelations offer little for those looking for more inside dirt on...

More than one-third of Americans ages 17-24 are unqualified for military service because of physical and medical issues, U.S. military officials said. Curt Gilroy, the Pentagon's director of accessions, said the United States has "an obesity crisis." "There's no question about it," Gilroy told the Navy Times. "Kids are just not able to do push-ups, and they can't do pull-ups. And they can't run." The Pentagon figures -- 35 percent of the roughly 31.2 million Americans ages 17-24 are ineligible for military service -- are drawn from data from the Centers for Disease Control. In a study scheduled to be...

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- The United States and other nations should take a diplomatic approach toward Iran in negotiations over that nation's nuclear program, President Carter said Thursday. President Carter says the U.S. should take a diplomatic approach toward Iran. Iran's nuclear chief and representatives from the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, as well as Germany, started talks Thursday in Switzerland over a recently revealed nuclear facility in Iran. Tehran says it is developing its nuclear program for energy purposes, but many nations think Iran wants to make nuclear weapons and will be able to do...

They come from vastly different backgrounds - the U.S. secretary of education, a Democratic civil-rights activist, and the Republican former House speaker - but they all agreed that what they saw yesterday at two Philadelphia schools could be a national model. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, the Rev. Al Sharpton, and Newt Gingrich toured Mastery Charter School-Shoemaker Campus and McDaniel Elementary on the first stop of a multi-stop tour promoting education improvements.